


O Holy Night

by Redstreakfox



Category: Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart (Cartoon)
Genre: M/M, Short One Shot, Zine piece, holiday fluff, non-canon timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27942092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redstreakfox/pseuds/Redstreakfox
Summary: Badgerclops and Mao Mao reflect on the Christmases they've spent together as they prepare Sheriff HQ for this year's festivities.
Relationships: Badgerclops/Mao Mao Mao
Kudos: 21





	O Holy Night

**Author's Note:**

> A piece I wrote for the "A Sheriff's Tale" Badgermao fanzine. Hope you all enjoy!

_Twas the night before Christmas,_

_And all through HQ,_

_A pair of heroes were stirring,_

_A cat, and badger too._

_Some new stockings were hung,_

_By the chimney with care,_

_In the hopes that St. Snugglemagne,_

_Soon would be there._

Or at least, that’s what Mao Mao and Badgerclops had told their young protégée as they sent her off to bed that serene Christmas Eve night. She protested, of course, but once the two told her St. Snugglemagne wouldn’t come to children who stayed awake, she finally agreed.

It had been less than forty-eight hours since the young bat had offhandedly mentioned that she was the only one in her skewl that had never celebrated the holidays before, a comment so surprising that even the usually stoic cat was forced to turn his head around in shock.

Normally, Badgerclops and Mao Mao regarded most holidays with only fleeting interest, too busy on the road as traveling heroes to really have time to waste on made up days to simply buy things. Christmas however… that was something different. It was a day that carried heavy weight for the two of them; heavy, but good. Memories and cherished conversations from their past that made that winter day too special to ignore, and allowing Adorabat to miss even one more second of it was something that Mao Mao declared was beyond unacceptable.

Since then, everything had been a mad dash towards that day of merriment: secret meetings in Badgerclops’ lab, shopping trips disguised as scouting for monsters, Mao Mao even going so far as to swallow his pride and calling his folks to ask for some of their holiday recipes.

And now here it was, merely an hour before midnight, when the cat and badger took a step back and looked over the work that they had pulled off so far.

For HQ’s living room, it was as if a holiday bomb had exploded directly in the middle of everything. Ribbons and streamers of festive colors adorned every wall and door of their home. Reindeer and elves made out of homemade crafts were shoved into every nook and cranny while wreaths of scented pine needles and winter berries hung upon windows to give their home a spiced aroma. Nutcrackers stood sentry at a multitude of doorways, Yuletide guardians keeping watch in anticipation of the joyous morning to come.

More than that, though, they were an unmoving audience for the one last job still yet to be done.

It stood nearly as tall as the ceiling, the Christmas tree they both had picked out from Farmer Bun’s collection. It was the final yet most important task left for them to do, and in the soft glow of the fireplace, logs safely ablaze behind a metal screen, they set to work adorning it with an arsenal of lights and decorations.

“Dude you’re putting way too much on that side, it’s gonna fall!”

“Badgerclops, this is a real tree! Don’t get sticky sap everywhere!”

“For the third time dude, Geraldine is not a decoration and you cannot put her in the tree…”

The work was slow, but enjoyable. Periodically, in the soft glow of the firelight, Mao would sneak discreet looks over at his co-hero, his partner, his boyfriend, watching the determined focus in his eye present itself as it had when it first drew Mao Mao in all those years ago. Even through the hushed bickering here and there, Mao couldn’t stop from smiling when, out of the corner of his own eye, he would notice Badgerclops sneaking the exact same glances.

“Well, that’s it,” the feline stated, rubbing his gloved paws together to signal a job well done, “Thirty-six strings of different colored lights, one hundred and twenty eight immaculate ornaments, and one glistening star nestled on top of the finest tree in Pure Heart Valley. It’s almost too perfect to take down once the new year hits.”

“Almost too perfect?” Badgerclops asked. “This is probably our best work yet and you wanna say almost? What could possibly be missing?”

The cat smirked, “You haven’t noticed yet?” There was a glint in his eye, and just as the badger opened his mouth to respond, the cat seemed to vanish.

“Dude where are you–??”

Mao Mao was already out of the room and bounding up the attic stairs before Badgerclops could even finish. His words fell on deaf ears anyway as the sable cat was single-mindedly focused on finding what had been stashed away for so long.

It was only a few minutes later that he came sauntering back into the living room, blowing dust off a small, ornately carved box.

Even in the dimming glow of the fire Mao could see the badger’s eye widen about as far as it could.

“Is that…?”

“Mhm,” the cat neatly replied with a curt nod and an ever growing smile. He walked over towards the badger and sat down on the floor in front of the tree. Badgerclops followed suit, his eye still trained on the box.

“It’s only been a couple of years since we last had it out right?” Badgerclops asked. “It’s kinda crappy of me to say but I had nearly forgotten about it.”

“To be fair, there was no reason to have it out last year, considering what happened,” Mao Mao replied. He gingerly tilted the box so that the bottom was facing him, tapping the wooden panel in the middle twice until it loosened and fell away, revealing a key. Twisting it into the lock, the two heard the latch softly click. Mao Mao opened the lid to reveal four odd and unique ornaments, no physical theme or color to connect them together in any way that anyone other than the two of them would understand.

Silently, Mao pulled out the first ornament, a mischievously grinning weasel with a sack of presents hoisted behind him as if ready to make a daring escape. Mao Mao softly held it in his paws and looked up at the badger. “Remember this one?” the cat asked.

“How could I not? It’s the very first one we got together. The first year we met, the first Christmas we spent together,” Badgerclops replied.

They were looking for a town with a rumored monster bounty when suddenly a snowstorm descended upon them. Mao Mao had argued to push ahead, that he just knew the town was close by, but the badger refused. Eventually the feline acquiesced and they set up camp for the night.

Huddled beneath a blanket in their one tent together as the wind whipped outside ferociously, the two eventually fell asleep cuddled next to each other. For warmth, of course, they had both agreed, but as Mao felt those arms around him, arms almost as big as himself, he felt a pull somewhere deep in his gut. He didn’t know what it was, what it could be, or what it eventually would be, he just knew that he felt it.

The next morning, as the snow cleared, the two saw that the village had indeed only been a mile away, too hard to see when the storm had started raging. Badgerclops apologized through his laughter and made it up to the cat with a meal. It was there at the inn that the two remembered it was Christmas morn, and, on a whim, Mao bought an ornament from the local shopkeep; the thieving weasel to commemorate their time together, and to remind the badger of how far he had come from his time as a villain.

“Oh! What about this one?” Badgerclops asked excitedly, removing the second ornament from the box as Mao Mao hung the first one up on the tree.

“Oh yeah,” the cat said, turning to look. In the badger’s hand was a small ornamental cup made to look like it held green tea. “You bought that one, right?”

“I did, for you. It was our first date together. I wanted something to remember it by.”

“I think to this day I’m still surprised you asked me out,” the cat said with a smirk.

“One of us had to do it. We both knew we wanted to and I just couldn’t hold it in anymore. The curse of being so emotionally honest…”

“Badgerclops, you’ve got the emotional intelligence of a goldfish. I may be cardboard in that area but that still just makes you a–”

“ _Anyway_ ,” the badger said firmly enough to cut off the cat’s words. “I knew I had to do it. I’d known for a long time that I wanted too, but I guess I was worried you would say no. Your face going as red as your cape was all the answer I needed though,” he smugly finished.

The cat crossed his arms and looked away in embarrassment. “You were the first person to ever ask me out,” he mumbled. “How was I supposed to react?”

“Exactly the way you did,” Badgerclops replied as he stood up and moved himself closer to his boyfriend. He cupped the feline’s face in his hands and (with only slight resistance from the cat) turned it so that their eyes met before gingerly kissing him square on the nose. He then turned to the tree to add his ornament. “That night we went ice skating, and I got so cold that you made your mom’s special green tea for me. The very next day I saw the ornament in a storefront and had to buy it.”

Mao Mao smiled at the memory and bent down to pick up the third trinket from the box. “By that point, getting one of these every year just sort of became a tradition,” he said. You bought this one too, but for me it’s the one that means the most.”

Mao Mao brought it up to eye level and watched as the glow of the fire reflected off of it, an ornament of a silvery metallic heart with a small crack placed purposefully in the middle of it. A fake bandage placed across to patch it over. They both stared at it in silence, the mood growing tense as memories flooded back into both of them.

“That was the first time you told me you loved me,” the badger whispered, remembering.

“That was the first time I told you I loved you,” the cat whispered back like an echo.

The badger looked up to meet the cat’s eyes, “We were fighting a monster. I took a hit pretty hard.”

“All that red in the snow… I thought I would lose you.”

“Dude,” Badgerclops chuckled, extending his robo arm to ruffle Mao’s head fur. “Half of my body is metal. It’s gonna take more than a scratch to get rid of me.”

Seizing on that faint moment of levity, Badgerclops bent down to pick up the last ornament; a perfectly crusted pie. “Now this one is easily my favorite and no, before you say it, it is not because it looks like food.”

“I know, it’s because I made a public fool of myself,” the cat grimaced, arms now folded in irritation.

“Oh come on man, it could have been worse. Yeah, I met your parents for the first time uninvited at your family’s Christmas thing. And sure, maybe your dad made fun of me until you blew up in his face, loudly proclaimed us lovers, and then stormed out with a string of curses I never knew existed, but you finally stood up to him!”

Mao Mao furrowed his brow, “I completely embarrassed myself.”

“But you embarrassed yourself for me, and that meant a lot. Plus, look on the brightside,” the badger said, now openly laughing, “You ate so much cobbler that night.”

“Three of my sisters still haven’t spoken to me,” the cat said.

“Then just talk to me three times more,” Badgerclops replied, playfully nudging his feline partner as he set the ornament on the tree.

They stood back for a second time to look over their creation.

“Perfect now?” Badgerclops asked.

“Almost,” the cat said, feigning an air of concentration.

“Dude, that’s everything. What could possibly be missing?”

The cat turned his head up to grin at his boyfriend. Mao Mao moved his arm around to reach inside one of the pockets of his cape. “This,” he said as he tossed a small box in the air.

The badger gave a small yelp in surprise and grabbed the box right as it reached eye level. He slowly turned it around in his hand, giving Mao Mao a puzzled look as the cat matched it with a smirk. Inside was a miniature wooden carving of the three of them. Mao Mao and Badgerclops with an arm around each other, and Adorabat beaming in between them.

“Where did you get this?” the badger asked, his eye wide in surprise as he looked over the new ornament.

“I made it myself. I knew you’d fight me about putting Geraldine in the tree, so I figured using her to carve something nice would be as good,” he replied, a hand reaching out to take the figurine back. “Not so bad for emotional cardboard, huh?”

“But, I don’t get it…” the badger said. “What’s the special occasion?”

Mao Mao chuckled with a faint smile as he placed the ornament right in the center of the tree. “Badgerclops, this is the first Christmas with all three of us as a family. What could possibly be more special than that?”


End file.
